


A Few Drops

by EmmG



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dark Solas, F/M, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:18:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmG/pseuds/EmmG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants her now when the world is about to end and her wrist is bleeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When A Choice Is Offered

She understands him a little, she thinks.

He does not intend to survive the massacre he is to cause so cutting ties is easy. Leaving her is easy. Burn and pillage and murder in the name of an old world is easy.

It is quite unfortunate for him then that she shares his views.

\---

He doesn't practice blood magic.

Lavellan slashes her wrist over a well-positioned blade and fills a vial up to the brim.

It's hard to do with only one hand and blood dribbles down her forearm, staining her tunic, but she is a resourceful girl as he often told her.

\---

It isn't long before Ferelden bends the knee. A nation divided by unrest and disdain for the Inquisition was bound to be the first to succumb.

Lavellan retreats deeper into Tevinter.

Dorian welcomes her with open arms. He shatters their respective crystals and says they will need them no more. Captures her face, takes in her sallow skin, sharp bones and reddened eyes and reaffirms it.

"You will not be harmed," he says, a figure of black and gold, a powerful Magister at her back. "You have my protection."

For how long, is what she wants to ask.

But she ends up giving him the enchanted vial of her blood instead.

Dorian ages a century at the sight, but he is resolute. Perhaps more so than her. He's been at war longer, has seen his men fall day and night while she plotted behind safe walls. Trapped between the Qun and Fen'Harel's spy network, he is nothing if not desperate for a way out.

"It will not be enough," he says with sorrow.

Lavellan kisses his cheek. "Enough for a display?"

He runs a finger down the glass. "Quite. There's much hatred in here; it's potent."

"Good," she says. "And if not, there is always more."

\---

Josephine dresses her in black silks.

Vivienne braids her hair and makes her face a harsh mask.

Leliana slips knives into her sleeves and boots. Well - _sleeve._

Blackwall sharpens her daggers.

Iron Bull coats her blades in poison.

Cullen forms a barricade of warm bodies around her.

Dorian makes another incision along her wrist, right next to the old one, and fills up a second vial.

Cassandra forces her to kneel and recites a prayer to the Maker.

Varric coaxes a smile out of her.

Sera shoots a flaming arrow into the darkened sky to signal her arrival.

They all bow to her as she walks out onto the battlefield.

\---

The word 'parley' incites ragged claws to tear her insides.

It isn't so. They both know it.

He humors her with the term; perhaps even thinks he is being respectful, kind, polite.

Lavellan rides out on a red hart. The ranks of her army part before her, a quivering mass of bodies ready to bite, unwilling to die. She doesn't want to die either, but to fight it is another thing to worry about. Her focus mustn't waver, so she calmly accepts the reality that she will. If not today then soon enough.

The Dread Wolf walks. His hands are clasped at his back as he emerges from the sidelines, previously well-hidden among his precious People. He never joins battle unless certain of the outcome. The irony isn't lost on her.

Coward, she wants to spit at him, but holds her head high and calms the animal with soothing touches as it trudges forth through the field which will soon be slick with blood if she has her way.

Lavellan arrives before him. His gait is deliberately slow as he approaches, his steps heavy, his armor reflecting the light of a thousand torches, bright and gleaming.

He looks old, she thinks, as he stops and offers his help for her to dismount.

He tells her she's beautiful.

"You look old," she offers in return, hand digging into his shoulder as he assists her down. No point in hiding her thoughts nor does she care to.

His roar of a laugh, unrestrained and wild and so entirely unlike him, carries through the field. They are out of earshot, two figures meeting in the middle for a futile discussion, but Lavellan swears all hear him and step back.

"I am old," Fen'Harel agrees. "Too old."

"And I am tired," Lavellan whispers. "I am so tired."

His hand cups her cheek. "I know, vhenan. Come."

Even now, Lavellan is a pup at his heel as she follows him into the massive tent erected specially for their talks. No man's land. The word tastes like ash in her mouth. He closes the flap behind her and the world around them dies. Sounds are no more. Everyone is so far away and she is alone.

"This will not accomplish anything, but it is a welcome respite," Fen'Harel tells her. He touches her face even as she flinches, thumb brushing over her lips and wiping away the rouge Josephine so carefully applied. "They've made a doll out of you."

"I must look the part," Lavellan murmurs, walking past him. His familiarity is unnerving.

"You must be yourself."

He follows, fingers crawling down her arm and unlacing secretive hooks, pulling concealed knives out and undoing the strap which holds her finely crafted daggers. Then he kneels, and her breath catches for just an instant, to repeat the ministrations with her boots.

"I expected more," he confesses, gazing up at her.

"I have more," she says, inching down her high collar to reveal an ornate, thin blade woven tightly into the fabric, complete with a rune which pleasantly burns her skin.

"Good girl," he breathes, unabashed pride teasing at the corners of his lips.

Something about him has changed. It's in the air around them, an oppressing presence feeding on her fear. She wants to claw at her throat, tear off the beautiful dark silk only so she can breathe. The need is overwhelming; she panics. Lavellan lowers herself into one of the two chairs and leans back. He mirrors her actions and soon they're staring each other down.

Rather she stares.

He drinks in her expression.

Lavellan looks away when she speaks. "Why did you concede to this meeting?"

"Because I needed to see you," Fen'Harel says simply. "The display is rather grandiose for the occasion and I don't much care for your army breathing down my neck, but it will have to do."

"You could have stalked my dreams as you did in the beginning," Lavellan remarks.

"Do not play clueless." There is no anger in his tone; he sounds amused. "You barricaded your mind." A nod toward the pendant she wears - an acknowledgment. "Master Pavus' work, I presume? Very impressive. I can't breach it."

"Tevinter is a nation of scholars," she whispers, forming a fist around the pendant. "What did you want?"

Interesting and bitter demand, considering she's the one who summoned him. But he thinks she is under pressure to seek peace. Let him think that. Let him believe.

He reaches across the table to take her hand - her only hand. She allows it, but it lies like a dead thing in his grasp.

"Leave with me today and let there be no unnecessary bloodshed for the time being," Fen'Harel asks softly.

Lavellan winces. How late it comes, this request for companionship - now that she is no longer willing to give it.

"You told me to live well while time remained," she reminds him, her tone as cold as her eyes. "You told me you walked the dinan'shiral. You took my arm and promised you would never forget me before setting off to bring death across Thedas. Don't you think it hypocritical to ask this of me now?"

He smiles and for a moment she is reminded of the quiet scholar who used to praise her progress back at Skyhold. The man who corrected her pronunciation and healed her wounds. The one who argued against violence.

Her hand is cold so he covers it with both of his. Blows hot air on her knuckles. Soft, timid intimacy she craved for years but which he gives only now that she is broken.

"Very," he agrees. "Selfish is an accurate description as well. But you have not lived well and soon you will not live at all. I realize I cannot let you die."

His voice wavers and she understands this to be a veiled confession. Lavellan grasps his fingers, nails digging into the skin, aiming to rip through and fracture bone.

"What did you do?" she demands, trembling. "What happened to you?"

"The Wolf bit off more than he could chew," Solas - because yes, it is him, it is finally him - whispers. "I could not allow them to return. This world must be new. They would have corrupted it. I took their power and they withered, but not the All-Father."

Lavellan wrenches her hand out of his grasp. Bile rises up her throat. "You are like him now, is that it? You are vengeance and retribution and hatred."

"I am still myself, but yes, you would be right in your assumption." He rises, disrespecting the distance she put between them by pulling her to his chest. "You soften me. You calm me. I cannot be what he was for the sake of my People and you will keep me from it. And if I am to fall after all of this is done, you will show them the right way."

"They are not my People," Lavellan says. "You made that abundantly clear. I am a shadow wearing vallaslin. I am a shem, as far as you are concerned."

"No," he says simply and kisses her.

It's a soft brush of his lips against hers, a tired gesture. Solas brushes hair away from her face and the kisses travel up her cheeks and behind her ears, over her closed eyes and back to her mouth.

"How cruel that you should want me not out of love but to further your agenda," she says. Her lips move over his, making her words his own.

"I love you, I do love you," he recites into her ear.

There are furs laid out on the ground and she understands his intent when his fingers tear off her detachable collar.

"Very well," Lavellan agrees and undresses without a sound.

The Dread Wolf comes undone in her arms. He pants into her ear and she caresses his back long after he's had his fill. He helps her dress, conscious of the additional effort due to the lack of an arm. His chest heaves still, his skin is flushed and glistening with sweat.

They exit the tent even if nothing has been decided.

He kisses her in front of their armies. Tilts her chin upward. "Will you come, then?"

"You don't practice blood magic, do you Solas?" Lavellan asks. She reciprocates his gesture by cupping his cheek.

"It is not worth exploring," he admits.

"Good," she says simply and turns away.

From across the battlefield, Dorian sees her and shatters the vials of her blood. She feels the pull in her chest and keels over. It isn't drawing energy from her, not for now, but soon enough if she were to decide it.

The spell is powerful, but it is meant only to scare.

The mages amid Fen'Harel's ranks fall to their knees and cannot resist the strength of forbidden power as it turns them into vessels. They rise as abominations.

Solas is frantic. He casts a barrier over his soldiers, but even his reach is limited this far away.

Her hart is gone. She will have to walk back.

That is all right.

"I will bleed myself dry if I have to," she tells him over her shoulder.

"I will not allow it," he hisses through gritted teeth. "I will find you before this is over."

Lavellan hums. "So you will."

"Ar lath ma, vhenan."

"Ar lath ma, Fen'Harel."

He retreats to lick his wounds and she to inflict new ones.


	2. She Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She goes to him.

They destroy his precious eluvians one by one, and with each shattering of the glass she feels herself turn a little more to stone. The relics of their shared past are worth naught; she'll crush history itself under her heel if it means putting an end to his, falsely proclaimed selfless, megalomania. They can always make new traditions, erect taller statues and paint grandiose murals - but they can't remake a world. Remembering is not having, and she won't let him bring back what was rightfully buried by sacrificing innocents.

Lavellan studies her reflection.

She is so pale.

\---

Her arm is mapped with scars. If she moves too abruptly, the stitches rip and she is bleeding.

The agents they capture gaze at her with curiosity. Not hatred, not malice, not fear, but curiosity. She seeks support from a walking stick or Dorian if the latter is present. He keeps her upright as she tells them to run back.

You are sending us back, my lady, the scouts always ask.

Oh yes, she recites the same answer, and you will carry a message.

But what message, my lady, their wide eyes inquire, a look she sees too often, there is no missive.

You need no missive, she generously recites the truth that's been seared onto her lips.

She is empty. Pity is still there, clawing at her consciousness, but so is Dorian as he casts his spells, as he bleeds her a little more dry each passing day to corrupt those they capture. Then, she can see through their eyes and taste the lies on their tongues - until the depraved nature of blood magic catches up and devours them.

Devours them and hurts her.

Sometimes, she asks Dorian to turn them into abominations just to fuel chaos. Most often she lets them die. They are such a reliable source of information.

"You don't need to do this, my friend," Dorian says as he heals her wounds and infuses her mind with quiet. "We can find another vessel."

Lavellan laughs. "And where will you find someone to equal me? Someone corrupted with his magic, someone whose blood has tasted his essence? No, Dorian, you will not find another."

He knows. Of course he knows.

But she loves him for offering a way out, one which she will never take.

So she just bleeds.

\---

"Drink," says Cassandra, pressing a mug of hot tea to her lips. "There has to be a better way."

"You cannot argue the effectiveness of her methods," points out Vivienne, smiling. "She is affecting him."

"It's not worth killing yourself for," protests Varric, hands curling into fists.

"We will die either way," says Iron Bull but now he sounds like the Hissrad persona she's forced him to abandon.

They argue and force their opinions onto her until Lavellan can't hear anything but her own breathing. Dorian embraces her and he is her crutch once again as he hauls her up, to her feet, and growls at all to disperse.

"Leave her to her choices," he snaps, and she buries her face into the crook of his neck in gratitude.

"You would see her keel over," growls Cullen. "Enabler."

"I would respect her," retorts Dorian, jaw set tight. "Out of my way, Commander."

It becomes hard to breathe around them. Around all of them. Her companions and their concern and idealistic views. Nothing about this is ideal. She walks the same path as the man who once hid among them. Only hard, monstrous choices remain and she is the only one with enough clarity to perceive it.

They shatter from inside. The hairline cracks in the porcelain of their composure grow to holes, and they no longer are a united entity.

They shatter so beautifully.

\---

"I cannot be around you," Cole, his voice small and hands trembling, whispers to her.

"Run, sweet Cole," Lavellan tells him. She thinks she's smiling; she's very cold.

\---

Briala comes as a surprise. She slips into Skyhold at nightfall and is immediately ambushed. She does not fight - she grins.

"I will not fight for him," she says. "Search my mind, take my memories, torture me if you must. I was never loyal to him."

Lavellan can't find it in herself to ask more than, "And why not? He stands for everything you do."

"I do not stand for madness," Briala hisses. "Do you think there will be a place for us once this is over? No. We are unworthy, in his mind. A second sort. Children."

Lavellan hides her face in her hand and laughs. "Welcome, Ambassador, I accept and cherish your help. However, I fear your stay shan't be long. I follow in his footsteps."

"Is that not good? To be on the wolf's trail?"

"I never said I was on his trail."

\---

She is no mage.

"Send me into the Fade," she tells Dorian.

He is her only support. He doesn't question, does not judge, does not chastise. He does as she asks and in return they tell each other sweet lies to dull the agony of reality. Enabler, Cullen had called him. What a fitting title - they both deserve it.

The Wolf finds her within an instant.

She is tired even here. The dream is beautiful - is this a dream? Lavellan can vaguely remember asking for something, but oh, this is so peaceful.

"What are you doing?" he demands, gripping her by the shoulders and shaking shaking shaking until she slumps against him and he is satisfied with her submission.

"I think I am dying," Lavellan whispers, lips moving against the rich fabric of his robes. "Does it pain you?"

"Cease this," he orders. "You have made your point. You can hurt me. You can destroy my ranks from within."

"I am cold," she continues. "I didn't think it would feel...cold."

This particular pocket of the Fade twists into a nightmarish version of itself. The darkness makes her gasp; he's the only constant and she clings to him in fear of being devoured, swallowed whole.

"Cease it," he repeats. "Or I will force you."

\---

They are divided and she hurts.

Her methods wield results, but at what cost? Without Dorian she is alone. He is everything to her. Lavellan isolates herself; she cannot hurt them, her companions who look at her with fright in their eyes, fearing for her life, assuring her that they are strong in their own way, that they shall prevail. They will not. She's found the Wolf's blind spot and will abuse it until the end. She can't let them sway her.

But Dorian falls and without him she is powerless.

Murdered by a finely crafted elvhen dagger slipped between his ribs as he admired the reconstruction of his family mansion. Such a mundane death.

Lavellan keeps vigil over his body until her strength fails. Then, she is gripped by dry heaves and tears and cries that amount to loud nonsense. Days turn into months, and she is no better. The sky darkens. Her patrols do not return. She still trembles, still relies on her walking stick; utterly destroyed from within, she allows no healer to come close.

The day she coughs up blood and Tevinter falls to Fen'Harel's agents, Lavellan knows she is done.

\---

Cassandra holds her hand. "Inquisitor?" she asks in a wavering voice.

Lavellan can't smile. She can't give her this. It would be unkind.

They are not hard to find. They wear his emblem with pride - a look of smug satisfaction. She can barely stand, but she finds it in herself to press the dagger used in murdering Dorian against a youngster's throat. She will never relinquish it, this gruesome and lovely memento.

"I will come," Lavellan says. "Tell him I will come."

\---

She can't save the world.

But perhaps she can save her friends, though after the final page is turned they will curse her name.

Lavellan hopes.

\---

And he comes for her.

She kneels among chipped weapons and corpses - Tevinter is a painting of radiant fury and hot blood. She sees his feet first and raises the dagger.

He does not respond.

She laughs and presses a kiss to the blade.

"Spare them," Lavellan says. "You owe me that. Just them. I beg you."

"Do not beg me," Fen'Harel says, voice soft. "You should never beg."

He takes her into his arms. There isn't enough will left in her to scan his face for the possibility of a concession to her demand, for a refusal. Hope is such a tricky concept.

Lavellan wants to forget its sweet flavor.

\---

When the sky does burn, she is safely tucked away, dressed in resplendent silks and surrounded by gifts. A pretty little doll that once went by Inquisitor and commanded armies.

She is a waif now, eternally adrift in an ocean of sorrow. She can't ask if he acquiesced to her one request; can't risk the response being cruel. She tried, she tried so hard, and if he says that he didn't do it then it was all in vain. Her betrayal was in vain.

You can't save them all, but you can save a few. There always must be a few.

He kisses her lips and her cheeks and her neck. He bites her shoulder and pushes down her grown, eyes glimmering when she responds to the pain. It's something, it's a reaction, and she has so few of those as of late. He whispers beautiful nonsense against the line of her throat as he takes her. She can't count the times he wakes her up at night; it's a rush of heat, meaningless promises pressed to her feverish skin, and pleasure she wishes she didn't feel.

But, after all, he is all that remains and she never really stopped loving him. He simply twisted that love into something she wishes to rip out of her chest and watch burn.

So Lavellan traces the lines of his face and says, "Solas," to which he smiles as he pulls her atop of him. A position of power.

In those moments she can forget, but it never lasts.

\---

Lavellan doesn't know if any of them still live.

\---

He kneels before her, his body preventing any escape as it traps her in her chair. Her mind can't put a name to him. He looks saddened when she calls him Fen'Harel and elated when she reverts to the moniker he used during their time together at the Inquisition; neither feel right.

Solas takes her hand, tenderly kissing every finger. "You are pulling away from me," he whispers.

No. She is pulling away from his new, beautiful, perfect world where she does not belong. Lavellan looks away. "Can you blame me?"

"You will heal," he says. "I will make you happy again. You will laugh. We will have peace. A family; I remember you telling me how much you desired one. I can give you children and you will not have to watch them die. Ma vhenan, will you not smile for me?"

He gazes at her with such adoration that she feels a pang, but only briefly. He is everything. It's a truth she is forced to accept every single day. He is all she has. Lavellan turns her head away. The sky is beautiful, but it isn't hers. Nothing belongs to her anymore; he took everything.

"Keep believing that if it makes you happy," she says. Her tone isn't spiteful, not even angry, it is plain to the point of pain.

She thinks she can feel him sob into her hand, but it doesn't really matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making this a three-shot. Fuck it. That's what happens when I have less classes this semester.  
> Thank you for the lovely support, I love you all so very much.


	3. She Stays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, she always stays.

She stills his hand.

He did not lie. For once his words, however poetically embellished, had been the truth. Lavellan watches in horror whenever the wrath he stole from Elgar'nan claims dominance; the switch between personas is terrifying. The masks succeed each other with the swiftness of a young deer, and sometimes her arrows of clemency are simply not quick enough. Often, her quiver is simply empty; she is tired of this burden of morality.

He passes judgment and bleeds cruelty, and that is when she steps in, a shadow who guides him away after the last word has been spoken. Lavellan touches his jaw. He is taller, stronger, so much older, and she has but one arm to trap him, but somehow that is enough. Solas collapses into her rehearsed embrace, his face finding comfort in her shoulder, as she caresses his back and kisses whatever skin she can reach. It's very much like calming a frightened animal, and yet he is the hunter and should be riddled with spears rather than shown compassion.

"Breathe," Lavellan says - and how many times has that word been said? It's ash on her tongue, nearly meaningless. A tumble of sounds she's had to repeat too often. "Don't become what you hate."

"Yes," he breathes against her skin, fingers desperately clutching at any support, let it be her clothes or her hips or her hair. "Ma vhenan."

"You will go back and show him mercy," she continues, her hand rubbing soothing patterns over the valley between his shoulders.

"Yes," Solas says yet again.

It's a special sort of power to have over him, but ultimately a useless one.

\---

It's exhausting. His presence is a being all of its own, heavy, suffocating. There is so much of him, and a lot of it is changed; power that compresses her temples, a feeling of unease at what he's become, guilt at the actions she couldn't stop. She needs to be constantly on edge.

His fingers tilt her chin upward. Lavellan realizes she froze in the middle of eating and there is a smudge of jam by the corner of her lips which he wipes away with his thumb before sticking it in his own mouth. His expression shifts toward the playful.

"I was saying," he whispers, drawing closer, "that I am sending workers to Tarasyl'an Te'las to begin repairs. We can return there, if you wish."

"Please shut up," she whispers back.

His hand finds hers. "Vhenan..."

Lavellan scrunches her eyes shut. "Keep quiet. Concede to this one thing."

But of course he doesn't. He believes his words to be a healing balm, his silver tongue capable of confusing her into feeling better. The truth is that he is right, but she is tired of walking around as though in a fog, not happy, not unhappy, constantly erring in between two states.

She wonders what would happen if she were to stab his hand with the butter knife; it's right there, in front of her, an offering of cool flesh. Would it break the melancholy? The terrible feeling of emptiness and disquiet? Would he turn the anger she alone can soften her way? So many variants, and yet all that remains is a dull throbbing behind her eyes.

Lavellan bolts, nearly tripping over herself in her hurry to escape.

Breathe.

She tells him so often to breathe.

Hypocritical advice when she herself can't go through the motions, having forgotten them entirely.

\---

Lavellan has the dagger which killed Dorian framed. It catches sunlight beautifully and thus refuses to be ignored, blinds anyone who dares venture too close.

Upon catching sight of it, Solas moves to tear it down.

"I want it gone," he snaps, hands shaking as he fiddles with the glass casing.

She pulls an actual knife on him. "You touch it and I walk away."

"You love me," he murmurs, but the tremors have started; she can see them in his back, in his legs, in his hands.

"And?"

The dagger stays.

\---

Then there are moments when she finds solace in him.

"Let me heal them," he entreats, trailing wet kisses along the inside of her wrist.

They are still there, the scars she so lovingly inflicted upon herself; keepsakes, relics, of Dorian who'd carved her skin with the precision and care of a friend. Coarse ribbons of red and white which race up her forearm; a lovelier sight than the perfect world Solas brought forth from the dust.

Lavellan shifts, tearing her arm away. His mouth moves to her throat, too gentle, too careful for what he is now. It's an echo of the past.

He studies her face, lips a heartbeat from a question.

"No," she says, smothering it before it takes flight.

The question will come again; it always returns full circle.

He sighs and moves to unlace the ties of her robe. He is so warm, reminding her of the times they shared a bedroll during expeditions. It was a childish delight to stick her hands under his shirt and feel him tense up for a moment before his laughter wafted against her ear.

He was soft, then. As soft as he could afford to be.

Her fingers have a small seizure, or something very akin to it. They dig into the back of his neck. "I want Solas," she says, or maybe it's a whisper, maybe she's even crying.

Hot lips on her pulse point. "I am Solas."

"You haven't been Solas in years," she accuses, harsh words spoken into his skin, but doesn't let go.

A snap of his hips and he's inside of her, and it feels good, perhaps too good.

It's unexpected - his smile pressed to the shell of her ear as he breathes, "During my journeys in the Fade..."

And she can't help herself. Lavellan is laughing and he is laughing too, chest slowly shaking, rumbling. She kisses his face, not recognizing the smile that fights its way to her lips. She's banished it a lifetime ago, how can it still exist? Stubborn little thing.

He feels like Solas, then.

And it's Solas who weaves their fingers together. Solas who sets a sweet rhythm that makes her sigh. Solas who kisses her even as she is left gasping, desperate for air, undone in his arms.

He kisses a path down her body, cheek pressing against her heaving stomach. "You can't live in anger," he says. "Lay it to rest, ma sa'lath."

She caresses his head. "You mean you can't take much more of it."

But he's already pining her down, mouth returning to hers, the heavy heat of him pressing her firmly into the bed. His skin is slick with sweat and so is hers, an enchanting type of friction.

"If I forgive you," she says in between lazy kisses, her words pouring out even as his tongue delves into her mouth, "then I betray everyone. Spit on everything I ever did."

"What blasphemy indeed it is to allow yourself peace of mind."

She feels the length of him, hard against her thigh, as he entices her legs to wrap around him by gently stroking her knees before abandoning and raising them himself.

Teeth close over her ear. "Give me the blame, if you must. I won't drown in it, but it's devouring you."

It's a very dark statement, she knows, bordering on apathetic even. But all she says is, "Perhaps."

It's easy to forget with everything in the world reminding her of him alone.

\---

He is right. She cannot remain in a state of anger her entire life, and with the Veil down what a long life this is certain to be.

When she shares her intent to go out and aid the human settlements, his response is to lock the gates to his Keep with magic as her eyes shift left to right, disbelief coiling in her gut.

"It is unsafe," he says. "Not yet. Soon."

Lavellan grips his throat, allowing herself to be seized with the same fury as he often is. "Don't forget who I am. Who I was."

Solas cranes his neck as to press a dismissive kiss to her wrist. "Ir abelas, vhenan," he says, quietly, "but in turn do remember who I am."

"You are what you have made yourself."

"Yes, and you came to me. The gates stay locked." A finger guides her chin upward as her gaze drops.

He leads her back inside and shows her the new tomes he's acquired for his library.

\---

"You have a good memory," Lavellan says.

She kneels by the chaise where he lounges, reading a book. "Indeed," comes his reply. "Sometimes I wish I could forget." The sound of a flipped page cuts through the silence.

"Paint Dorian for me."

Lavellan rests her chin on his knee as his fingers thread through her hair. It's grown so long. This isn't submission; she is just tired. She feels like a husk of her former self and, in truth, that is precisely what she is.

"You need to let go," he says. "This is torture."

"Will you or won't you?" she asks. No strength remains for irritation or annoyance. The words are plain, her tone is plain, and Lavellan doesn't want to get up.

The book closes; it is temporarily set aside as he leans forth. "I will," Solas agrees. "But I might burn it too, if it brings you pain."

"If you do -"

He smiles, indulgently. "You will threaten me with a knife? Yes, I know."

She allows herself to be pulled into his lap and stays there as he crosses his arms over her middle and resumes his reading.

\---

She forgets about violence, on most days, and it proves a breaking point for him.

He doesn't know what to do with her passivity.

So he gives her gifts.

An exquisite portrait of her dead friend. Books in Common. Anything she asks, really, though these days it isn't much.

"They live," he says, desperately, holding her against a wall. "Some of them still live."

Lavellan dares not inquire for specific names. That tidbit of information is enough to make her exhale; it is a breath she's been holding since the sky burned all around them and she watched his pride take on material form.

Her eyes aren't made of glass anymore. She looks upon him and sees.

And he notices the change as well because he's kissing her hesitantly, testing her reaction. Then, more insistently as his leg pushes between her own and hands slide up her thighs to gather her skirts. He breathes against her throat, murmurs something in the language she refuses to learn for someone must retain the one he buried, and takes her to bed.

He hasn't been so timid since the night she clutched the rough material of his tunic and murmured "Stay, please, please, stay," while inadvertently admitting he would be the first to touch her so with her awkward enthusiasm.

He refuses to allow her to turn away after her heart has slowed down. His arm is around her waist, holding her on her side as he looks, drinks in her features, memorizes while also searching her face for something she can't quite pinpoint. He appears almost shocked when she draws near to kiss him.

"A few drops of blood for a few lives," Lavellan whispers, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck as his hand massages the small of her back. "A fair bargain, I suppose. I did achieve something, after all. You may heal my arm now."

"Is this closure, then?" he asks, kissing the wordless answer out of her.

"You are all I have," she sighs.

She is weary and he is warm. Lavellan embraces him back and for the first time it does not feel like surrendering.

"But you are still unhappy," Solas whispers.

His voice breaks and she does not correct him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE. The frigging End. I am done with this. I swear to not return to it. I loved writing every bit of it, but now it really is over. Thank you to all who stuck around <3


End file.
